𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟕 - 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐅𝐎𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑
The first time Draco had the thought to ask his mother about the funny looking girl following him as he ran through the halls of their home, he was seven years old, and not yet aware of the wariness behind his mother’s laugh as she took his much smaller hand in hers and led him to the family’s private sitting room.
“Dragon, you know how I love your father? how he loves me in return?”
At the time, the concept of love was very new for Draco. So far, he was only sure of the fact that he loved the color green, jam, and the white peacock his father had gifted his mother this past yule which she had named Gilly. Still, he nodded eagerly because while he knew love in such a simple, childish way, he also knew his mother to have never not told him the truth before and so he was sure that what she said about her and father loving each other had to be true as well.
“Yes, you love daddy like jam,” he said aloud as he thought quickly to how his mother’s bouts of silence were interrupted at just the sight of his father, she became almost sticky sweet when his father came about. “And he loves you like bugs!” Draco quickly thought of how his father was always reaching for his mother, grabbing her hand in his, pushing her hair behind her ears, father truly couldn’t ever stop touching mother when around her, much like Draco couldn’t help himself from snatching up any little bug he found while exploring the green gardens behind their manor.
his mother shook her head in disapproval but let out a small laugh despite herself.
“That will do well enough.” She paused and stood, “When two people really love each other, and are meant to love each other despite all odds, they share a piece of one another.”
She moved to stand in the doorway, the light of the room cast a dark shadow behind her and for a moment Draco sat confused, his mother stood before him, and yet directly behind her stood the stark outline of his father's form. From the height to the broad shoulders, to the sharp bridge of his nose. The only thing that set Draco wise to know that what he saw wasn’t his father exactly was the stark darkness of the figure. It was a translucent shade of black and seemed to almost be glued upon the wall except for when his mother shifted, for then the shadow would shift as well.
“They share each other's shadow, Draco. Mirrored glimpses of your soulmate’s form. The one I share is your fathers, and he shares mine.” A smile graced his mother's face then, softly, as she stared upon the mirrored shape of his father. “Everyone has a shadow different from them, some are blessed enough by fate to find their other half as me and your father have.” She turned then and motioned for Draco to come to her. “Someday, when you're older, you may find your own other half.” When Draco came and stood side by side with his mother, he took his eyes away from the towering form his father cast and instead took a moment to look at the other figure now stark against the wall.
Draco’s shadow stood quite a good bit lower than the other shadow, and for a moment Draco wondered if he too was that small in comparison to his father. After a short moment of staring at his own shadow, Draco could quite certainly find only two things of note. Firstly, Draco thought to himself that his soulmate had never even laid her eyes upon a hairbrush due to how her shoulder length hair stuck up at all odds and ends, framing the area of her head in a messy tangle like shape. The second thing was that she had very skinny knees. Almost immediately Draco broke into a tantrum one could not discern from screams versus sobs, to which his mother kneeled down in a panic to console her son’s wild emotions.
“What is it Draco? What’s come over you?” The question came from her as she pulled her son into her arms, in a hug she knew would console the young boy. It took a few moments for his dramatic sobs to calm down into superficial sniffles before his voice, muffled by his face pressed into her robes, whispered out the words Narcissa would retell with pity and mirth to her husband later that evening.
“She’s an ugly beast, Maman.”
𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟏 - 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐘
Draco was quite sure it wasn’t at all necessary for him to be standing as still as a board in Madam Malkin’s, being measured about when mother had his measurements taken down by their normal tailor a month or so prior when she had ordered an expensive black velvet set of formal robes, inlaid with golden trim, for his name day ball. But alas, as his father said before leaving him on his own in this run of the mill shop, it was tradition for upcoming Hogwarts students to have their robes made and mailed by the Madam who would enchant them all with a charm that would be activated upon their sorting of house. A useless enchant for him, he thought with a roll of his eyes, surely, he could board the Hogwarts express with a whole wardrobe of emerald green. He was a Malfoy after all, all this extra flair seemed useless, Slytherin was where he would be sorted, he was sure of it. Though Draco was only eleven, and somewhat sure that his father must be in the right about tradition if he was so adamant about it.
The chime of the bell above the shop door interrupted Draco’s internal monologue as the Madam paused her over dedicated measuring to address whoever had just entered the shop. “Oh! Hello dear! Hogwarts for you as well I assume, well come on over and take a stand, I’ll get to you in just a moment.”
Draco grimaced as the older witch then proceeded to jab his neck with the tip of her wand, the utterance of the same spell she’d been using to measure him previously- unable to be heard by Draco’s quick shout of displeasure.
“Watch yourself you hag, or my father will-” The rant Draco was about to unleash on Madam Malkin fell short as he turned away from her poking wand and his eyes landed on the only other occupant in the room besides himself and the witch causing him intolerable distress.
The sight of the boy standing to the side of the room had taken Draco by such honest surprise that his eyes went rudely wide. Immediately he became so distracted that even the sound of the Madam whisking out of the room to fetch something, or another was oblivious to Draco. Right now, he only had eyes for one thing, or well, technically one person.
The said person in question was a much smaller boy, if Draco didn’t have the bare minimum context that this boy would be joining himself at Hogwarts this year, he’d easily assume him to be younger than Draco himself, by a year or two based just on how small he was. His size wasn’t the only striking thing Draco noticed about the young boy, he also found his eyes lingering on the wild mass of hair framing the boy's face, the only thing seeming to hold it at bay from engulfing his face entirely was an obtusely ugly pair of round, black rimmed glasses. Shockingly between those heinous spectacles sat a pair of vivid green eyes peering back with a glare of emotion Draco could only describe as annoyance, or maybe fury.
The startling realization that his own observing eyes must have come off as terribly rude sent a violent red blush up Draco’s pale face and he quickly turned himself away; though the shame was set away just as quickly by childish curiosity of which he unleashed in a barrage of unsolicited information.
“Hello, Hogwarts too? Of course, Hogwarts too, Madam Malkin said so earlier, are you a first year as well? It’s my first year, though you wouldn’t think so if you saw me with a wand. My father says I’m perfectly well with a wand. Though my true talent lies in potions, at least my uncle says such. He came and stayed with us last Summer and showed me some things, He and my father say I’ll do well in Slytherin at the pace I am showing. Where–” The word vomit Draco had been unleashing onto the poor boy was interrupted, thankfully, by Madam Malkin popping back into the room just as quickly as she had previously left it.
“Well, that’ll be all I need of you Mr. Malfoy, best be on. Your father said to send you up the street to your mother, surely you know the way to Olivander's?”
Draco stood stumped for a moment, his brain coming out of the fog he had been in as he talked his way about, in the awaiting silence he realized he hadn’t once taken a moment for air during his tirade. The blush that covered his face this time when he turned back towards the Madam and the other boy was somewhat due to embarrassment, and somewhat due to lack of oxygen.
“Yes, yes. Of course, I know the way. What’d you take me for, a muggle?” He snarked as he moved across the room avoiding the eyes of either person in the room. It wasn’t until he was almost out the shop's door that he took another moment to turn around and spare a glance to the boy who was now being ushered by the witch up onto the round podium Draco had just been previously occupying. It was then- from this backwards angle of said boy, without the distraction of the devastating shade green his eyes bore, that Draco recognized the familiar outline he had spent so many countless hours memorizing by the sunlight cast through his bedroom windows.
And in that spare moment of thought Draco found himself faced with something much bigger than the idea of his soulmate being a gangly beast. No, now Draco was aware of a much bigger conundrum: His soulmate, was in fact not a beast, his soulmate was a boy.
“Oh, just wait until father hears about this.” Whispered the young Malfoy heir as he took off down the crowded street.